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- Varieties of picture book illustrations
- Shulevitz, end of chapter 9: "A range of possibilities" (p. 130)
- Media and techniques
- Shulevitz, chapter 13: "Principles of Technique"
- Collage: "The bomb and the general" (found objects), "Pip's magic" and "Matthew's dream" (paper cutouts).
- Color pencil: "A Christmas Carol" (as illustrated by Carter Goodrich)
- Notice the use of a technique akin to pointillism--to build up subtle shades from tiny strokes of vivid colors.
- Colored pencils are a relatively 'thin' medium. Here, shadows are deepened with watercolor washes.
- Contrast this precise use of the medium with the loose, scribbled coloring in "The strange appearance of Howard Cranebill, Jr."
- Computer graphics: 2D raster in "Zoom city"; 2D vector in "Knots: a step-by-step guide", typical of the diagrammatic applications of this category of programs; 3D in "Happy and Max: the pirate treasure".
- Oil painting: "Crookjaw", "Pish posh, said Hieronymus Bosch".
- Opaque paints: gouache in "One hole in the road", egg tempera in "The high rise glorious skittle skat roarious sky pie angel food cake"
- Paper construction: "The circus in the mist", uses tracing paper pages to suggest fog of varying thickness.
- Pastel: "Boshblobberbosh: runcible poems for Edward Lear", "Rip Van Winkle" (as illustrated by Gary Kelley).
- Photography: "The Ring"
- Pencil: "The Z was zapped" (which is also distinctive for being in black-and-white, at a time when the vast majority of picture books are in full color throughout)
- Printmaking: linocuts in "Why leopard has spots", lithography in "The velveteen rabbit".
- 3D: assemblage in "Snapshots from the Wedding" and "Wake up house!", metal sculpture in "Pish posh, said Hieronymus Bosch", hand puppets in "Humands".
- Watercolor: used for a highly controlled, hyperrealistic effect in "Fiddlin' Sam"; used in a 'messy' way in "Monster Motel"--in keeping with its monstrous topic.
- Style
- Shulevitz, chapter 14: "Style"
- Style is the unique visual 'residue' that remains after the picture is done telling its story.
- It may be the result of conscious decisions made by the artist, but more often it arises spontaneously from the prolem-solving process that leads to the illustration.
- Note how, in two books ("Boshblobberbosh" and "Rip Van Winkle") illustrated by the same artist (Gary Kelley), using the same medium, a very personal style emerges--in spite of the subtle adaptations required by the different narratives.
- Style is also equated with the illustrator's 'brand recognition'. Because of this, it is often pursued as an end in itself--in hopes of asserting a distinct identity in a crowded field of competitors.
- It is hard to argue with this strategy--especially for beginners who need to take advantage of any brief exposure to make a strong impression. Nonetheless, a style which emerges on its own from the 'raw materials' of the artwork (narrative content, medium, technique...) is bound to have a more durable impact.
- Style is influenced by artistic trends:
- In "The Art of Alice in Wonderland", we can trace the evolution of the same well-known character through various artistic periods, from Tenniel's original illustrations to the anime-inspired drawings of today.
- For a history of early picture book art, see "Illustrated children's books", which draws on the British Library collections.
- Note how the very personal styles in "Twin pickle" and "Crookjaw" in fact converge--they were published a year apart, and likely drew upon the same influences.
- Style may be the result of drawing inspiration from past masters:
- Italian Renaissance: "Rapunzel", as retold by P. O. Zelinsky
- Northern European Renaissance: "Dragon Feathers"
- Note how true to the original inspiration these images are. By contrast, the artwork in "Pish posh, said Hieronymus Bosch", while it does contain all the trappings of a Bosch painting (bizarre composite beings, out-of-context objects, etc.), overall fails to capture the eerily delirious mood of those same paintings.
- Japanese paintings: "The boy who drew cats"
- Hopper-inspired lighting in the urban vistas of "The coming of the surfman".
- A blend of influences from the American colonial period, and Dutch and Flemish masters, in "Rip Van Winkle".
- Echoes of such modern masters as Matisse and Chagall--recast into a very personal vision--in "Swami on rye".
- Style may vary within the same book.
- This was more common in the past, when alternating full-color and monochrome images (often line art) were used to lower costs, as in "The elephant and the bad baby".
- It is occasionally still done in the case of spot illustrations within the text of a picture book, as in "Pish posh, said Hieronymus Bosch".
- Image readability
- Shulevitz: "What makes pictures readable?", pp. 121-128
- Texture
- change in texture as part of the story ("Seven Ravens"): compare the hall of glass and the river cave.
- Contrast
- Edge
- Detail
- compare the different readability levels in the similarly precise images in "Valentine & Orson" and "Seven Ravens". Focus on all the attributes listed above.
- As Shulevitz says ("Varieties of readability", p. 126), readability is not a one-size-fits-all criterion. The differences between these two books amount to two different narrative strategies: the first one aims to retard reading, to invite the reader to pause and gaze; the second one speeds the action along by spotlighting its protagonist. See also the P. Nodelman essay mentioned in the second class.
- Picture space and composition
- "A Day in September": the distant viewpoint and the spare style of the drawings suggest that the story is about two different settings as much as it is about two different people. It's only when the two protagonists meet that the composition is cropped closely around them, to emphasize the climax of the story.
- Drawing objects and creating environments
- "A Mouse Told his Mother": the familiar objects in a child's bedroom become the raw material for the protagonist's imaginary excursions--tranforming his entire environment.
- In some (rare) cases, objects are endowed with unique personalities and become the sole protagonists of the story: "The Z Was Zapped".
- Drawing figures and creating characters
- Key issue: carrying a character for the entire span of the book.
- If there is one crucial difference between the skills required to illustrate children's books, and all other varieties of illustration (editorial, advertising, etc.), it's how to make absolutely clear that it is the same character that the reader is looking at throughout the story.
- In this respect, drawing for picture books is akin to drawing for animation or comic books--with the added difficulty that each drawing in a picture book is generally subjected to much more prolonged scrutiny (also, animators can rely on the character's unique voice and movement to cover up an imperfect likeness).
- human vs. animal, realistic vs. stylized
- We are extremely sensitive to minute differences in people's appearance--a skill essential to recognize individuals and to make meaningful social interaction possible. This makes the illustrator's job so much more challenging when the character is a realistically-rendered human being.
- The problem is made more difficult by the conflicting requirement to make the actions and emotions of the book involving ones. This--of course--means showing a variety of gestures and expressions--while maintining an invariant likeness.
- When drawing likenesses for picture books, you need to keep track of the three-dimensional structure of the head, so as to be able to draw it from different viewpoints. Often the best suggestions are in books aimed at a younger audience ("I Can Draw Faces"), or those designed for sculptors ("Modeling a likeness in clay", "Modeling the head in clay", "The portrait in clay").
- If maintaining a consistent likeness turns out to be a significant problem--and if it is your own story that you are illustrating--consider recasting the book idea to make the humans more stylized, or to replace them with animal characters.
- Stylizing can be achieved by simplification or exaggeration (caricature).
- In the first case, the large number of variables involved in the individual's identification is greatly reduced, making those variables easier to control.
- In the second case, each feature is made more distinctive, so that small differences no longer throw off the likeness.
- Caricatures may be a key to face recognition, according to one hypothesis mentioned in the book "In the eye of the beholder: the science of face perception".
- Our brains may store those countenances we have learned to recognize as sets of differences from a 'generic' model of the human head.
- This would explain why caricatures--which emphasize those differences--are often more immediately recognizable than realistic portraits.
- In several picture books, the exaggerated features used to depict the varied cast makes each character a memorable and easily recognized individual.
- Carter Goodrich, in his drawings for "A Christmas Carol", uses caricature to emphasize the inner disposition of imaginary characters
- The caricatures in "The Babe Ruth ballet school", instead, establish a solid connection to real, historical figures.
- In the case of animal characters, you take advantage of our far-lower capability for discrimination among individuals of other species.
- In both cases, you are trading a major problem (invariant likeness), for far easier ones--individuation (making sure that the character has some distinctive attribute, such as a garment of a specific color), and continuity (applying that attribute consistently).
- This of course does not mean that all animal characters lack individuality. It is useful to compare here the work of two popular authors, Rosemary Wells and Kevin Henkes--both known for fairly stylized furry-critter characters.
- In Wells' books (such as "Bunny Cakes" and "Max's Dragon Shirt"), the two recurring characters, Max and Ruby, are given individualized appearances and very distinct expressions.
- In Henkes' books, the text is chiefly resposible for conveying the individuality of the characters. In the pictures at the end of "Julius, the Baby of the World", we can tell Lilly apart from her cousin primarily because they wear different colors.
- the chief recognition markers of a realistic portrait
- facial proportion
- body proportion
- gender
- age
- The book "In the eye of the beholder", mentioned earlier, collects several additional theories on the recognition of each of the attributes listed above.
- A useful exercise is the creation of a "character sheet": a series of sketches of the same character in different poses, seen from different angles. This is used in animation studios as a guideline for animators, and will be a valuable addition to your portfolio.
- expression
- A very comprehensive discussion of facial expression, profusely illustrated, is in the book "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression".
- A much earlier book, a classic in the scientific literature--yet still useful to the modern artist--is Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals".
- Try an "expression gradient" exercise: drawing the same character expressing varying degrees of contrasting expressions--for instance, changing gradually from a frown to laughter.
- To get an idea of the possibilities, see Sendak's wonderful pictures of babies in "The Art of Maurice Sendak": pp. 142, 148, 190, 233, 270; all are essentially variations on little Sendak himself, as shown by a comparison between the photo on p.11 and the drawing on p.14.
- Make sure the expressiveness of the face carries through into the gestures, completing the character's body language.
- Color palette
- The selection of colors may be symbolic of its topic.
- While both "Monster Motel" and "It's Halloween" are replete with ghoulish delights, only the latter establishes a direct visual connection to the holiday by using a black/orange/yellow palette.
- The colors may help to tell the story.
- The passage of time is a key element in "Tuesday", and is clearly stated by the color choices (from warm sunset, through cool night-time blues, to golden dawn).
- In "The ring", the change from black & white to color photography parallels the change from unremarkable reality to magical adventure.
- Color theory
- The two classic works on the use of color in art are "Interaction of color" and "The elements of color".
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